The Weight of a Word
by ben10987654321
Summary: Set back in season 1 just after Hourglass. What Clark missed when Cassandra showed him his future because he pulled away too soon shows he may not end up as alone as he thinks. Oneshot.


**The Weight of a Word**

Summary: Set back in season 1 just after Hourglass. What Clark missed when Cassandra showed him his future when he pulled away shows he may not end up as alone as he thinks.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Clark stares down at his bed, unsure whether he wishes to attempt to try and get to sleep or not. It had been a weird couple of days and that is saying something for a boy who quite literally fell from the sky...in a spaceship. The one his parents have in the storm cellar. He is an alien from...well he didn't know actually. He is an orphan and as far as he knows there are no others like him on Earth. The day he fell to Earth there was also a meteor shower and tons of strange green rocks fell into Smallville and the rocks did things to people, gave them strange abilities and turned them into dangers Clark had been finding himself having to stop.

Anyway that brings him to the cause of his weird day. He was helping out at the local Retirement Home when one of the residents discovered that the meteor rocks in the pond outside could make him young again and what he did with this renewed youth was to try and get back at all the people who had helped put him in jail in his original youth. Turns out the man was a criminal. Clark managed to stop him eventually with the help of another resident of the home. An elderly lady named Cassandra who could see the future when she touched an object or person and somehow Clark was able to share the experience.

When she touched him Clark saw his own future. His own grim future. He was standing in a endless graveyard full of all the people he had known. His parents, Chloe, Pete and countless thousands of others and to Clark it only could mean one thing. He was not merely an alien. He was an immortal alien. That was his future. To end up all alone on a dead planet simply because he had outlived everyone. A shudder racks his entire body as Clark contemplates watching everyone he loves having to grow old and die.

This of course brings him back to his original dilemma. He knows if he goes to sleep it is that vision...that nightmare he is going to dream about. He lets out a breath. Well he better decide. He can either try to get to sleep or go and eat his parents out of house and home again. He cocks his head slightly. The food thing sounds like a pretty good idea really. He likes food...a lot but he already costs his parents a fortune so he better not and that leaves option number 1.

Clark lies himself down convinced that he won't be able to fall asleep and in truth it takes much tossing and turning before his mind finally succumbs to the darkness and he dreams what he feared he would dream about but in this dream he sees what he didn't before in his rush to get away from what he perceived to be the horror of his destiny.

Clark wakes up in darkness, standing in the endless graveyard. Grief racks him down to his very soul for people he hasn't even met yet. He screams at the universe and for a moment it almost seems to tremble in fear of the wrath he might unleash but there is no wrath. Only pain and grief and loneliness. Clark falls to his knees sobbing.

Clark stares down at the muddy ground beneath his feet, his breathing hard as he tries to reign in his emotions. It is then that Clark feels more than sees it. Light creeping over the horizon and he raises his head to see the brilliant yellow sun peeking over the horizon. In the blinding light he can see a figure silhouetted against the rising disk of the sun and hope rushes in against all his grief and loneliness. He isn't alone after all.

The figure then speaks a single word in what Clark can only describe as the most beautiful, angelic, melodic and strangely accented feminine voice he has ever heard. A word that has no meaning for him yet but one day will be spoken by a person who will matter to him as much as anyone else in his life will. Perhaps more. A person who will help him in his destiny and will share with him as much as it is possible for two people to share.

Clark cannot see any of her features as he imagines her lips move to speak her word that seems directed to get his attention and that single word she says reaches some place deep inside him touching something that has yet to be awakened and Clark can feel that she speaks it as someone who knows him perhaps better than he knows himself.

And this word that seems to be able to carry so much meaning is so short Clark wonders briefly in this dream that he will forget what it is that has passed between this woman and he.

Clark finds himself for the first time since he first saw this vision looking forward to the future just so he can meet this woman and see her face even if he will only remember this on a subconscious level.

And what is this word one may ask that carries so much even though it possesses only 3 letters.

Simple.

It is a name.

His currently lost and forgotten name.

"Kal."

The End.

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_Author's Note: I've been meaning to write an addendum to that graveyard scene for a while and I finally found 5 minutes to do so. I really don't think I have to say who the woman is. I hope it is pretty obvious as there is only really one person in Clark's future that calls him by that name._


End file.
